


Ice Bucket Challenge:  A View from the Ice

by debwalsh



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Ice, Ice Bucket Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:37:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge reaches the Avengers, and Tony has taken up the gauntlet, challenging Rogers, Barnes, Barton and Romanoff.  But when Rogers and Barnes appear to back down from the fight, Tony presses for answers ... and discovers something he'd never realized about the two men out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Bucket Challenge:  A View from the Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Don't Like Ice](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/69996) by xxxxxx6x. 



> I saw this image <http://xxxxxx6x.tumblr.com/image/95830907339>, not long after I watched Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie's response to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Their response was creative, if a little lacking in ice on skin contact.
> 
> So, between the two, the wheels started turning, and I ended up making this post on Tumblr <http://debwalsh.tumblr.com/post/95846305907/xxxxxx6x-just-watched-the-ice-bucket-challenge>
> 
>  
> 
> And so ... a new story was born. Enjoy!

“And that’s my ALS ice bucket challenge,” Tony Stark was saying, actually larger than life, on the building-sized television screen in the Avengers Tower communal living room. He was clad in one of the Iron Man suits, head dripping with icy water, actual ice cubes collecting in the suit’s neckpiece. The image had been recorded in this very space only a few hours earlier. “I challenge Cap, Barnes, Romanoff, and Barton next! You’ve got 24 hours to get funky with ice!”

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, eyed the image paused on the screen with trepidation. “People are doing this all over the country,” he said, a slight question mark in his words.

“All over the world. Started out as something else, now it’s raised millions for ALS,” Tony agreed, eying Cap as he moved across the space from the kitchen area to the lounge area.

Steve nodded gravely and continued on his way back to the large sectional couch, where Barnes was making grabby hands at him, looking like an oversized toddler decked out in murderous black. Steve’s hands twined with Barnes’s as he dropped to the sofa, and like some weird alien experiment, their legs were instantly tangled with each other, arms snaked around each other’s torsos, and fingers laced together, faces practically touching. It was like they were a symbiotic organism made of two parts vintage American beefsteak. “And it’s always with ice,” Steve added, looking completely at home in his human Gordian Knot with Barnes. Barnes snuffled into Steve’s ear, and Tony would swear the dude was actually sniffing Cap like a dog. Whatever he smelled seemed to satisfy him, because he smiled and rested his head on Steve’s shoulder, snuggling closer if that was even possible. As if ex-assassins snuggle. Well, there was Barton and Romanoff, so yeah. Ex-assassins snuggle. It was a thing. Apparently it was a thing happening in his tower. Regularly, and right in front of him, whether he liked it or not.

“ _Ice bucket challenge_. So yeah. Ice is involved. Barton and Romanoff have already done it. I think they really got into it, like _really_ , so we’re not going to see them again this evening. So that leaves you two.”

“And we’re supposed to make a donation, and then douse ourselves with ice.”

“That is the general idea, yes. You have been challenged. And you’ve gotta do it within 24 hours of being challenged.”

“Or … what?”

“Or … I don’t know. You’re a wuss.”

“That’s the worst that can happen? I’m a wuss?”

“Well, your public image could be damaged, I suppose. Not rising to the challenge, turning your back on Lou Gehrig’s Disease –“

“Lou Gehrig?” Barnes asked, suddenly interested, uncoiling himself slightly from the anaconda grip he had around Rogers. “We saw him play.”

“Yeah, even though he played for the Yankees, we did go to a Yankees game once a year. And we were there that day,” Steve agreed, looking fondly at Barnes, his thumb drawing lazy circles on Barnes’s shoulder.

“ _That_ day?” Tony demanded, dropping into the chair across from them, trying to find a spot on the wall to focus on so his blood sugar didn’t skyrocket from all the sweet pouring off the geriatrics. “What day?”

“Yeah, the day he announced his retirement from the game. The day he made that speech, called himself the luckiest man alive,” Steve elaborated, ghosting a kiss across Barnes’s forehead, who smiled softly in response.

“You were there, you saw it happen?”

“It was Steve’s twenty-first birthday. Made a special effort,” Barnes said, turning to nuzzle into Steve’s neck. 

Steve smiled, pressing his cheek to Barnes’s hair. It was good hair. “Was a good birthday, Buck. The speech was inspiring. Gehrig was a great ballplayer, a good man, got a raw deal. Was hard not to cry that day. Baseball lost a great. The _world_ lost a great.”

“Well, now they have another name for what killed him. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS. And this challenge is raising money and awareness for the cause.”

“Raising money,” Steve repeated. “Donations,” he added, and Tony nodded. “How much did you contribute?”

“$20,000.”

Barnes let out a low whistle and raised his head to look directly at Tony. “Wow, that’s a lot of simoleons.”

“Not really, but the point isn’t so much the individual donation as it is inspiring others to donate and raise awareness. Over a million people have participated, and it’s raised almost 90 million dollars. But more importantly, more people know what ALS is today than a month ago.”

“Yeah, so couldn’t we donate $50,000 and do a different kind of PSA? Raise awareness without , you know, _ice_?” Steve asked with a weird kind of desperation in his startlingly blue eyes. Barnes, face pressed cheek to cheek with Cap, mirrored the expression with equal blueness.

“That’s not how it works. It’s donation and challenge, daring new folks to take the plunge.”

“With ice.”

“Yes, with ice,” Tony confirmed, his exasperation growing. Normally Cap and Barnes were the smartest kids in the class – maybe something to do with their respective serums, maybe they were both just naturally intelligent – but today, neither one of them was getting the memo. “You got a problem with ice?”

“Actually, yeah,” Steve admitted in a small voice, melting into Barnes, who wound himself tighter around the Capsicle.

 _Capsicle_.

 _Ice_.

Like, _70 years’_ worth of ice.

Shit.

It was right before his eyes, the way they clung to each other, the way their hands ranged up and down each other’s limbs. Not like they were groping, although they totally were. Like they were trying to get _warm_.

Like the ice that had held each of them for decades was _right_ there. Just out of sight.

The ice is never far away.

And the only thing holding the ice back for Steve is Barnes. And the only thing holding the ice back for Barnes is Steve.

Tony understood this kind of fear. For him, it was the darkness. The darkness and unfamiliar stars, a tiny hole between universes closing before his eyes. The hole was always there, and in his darkest moments, he was on the wrong side of it. The only thing that held it back was Pepper.

So yeah, he got it. 

&&&

“So, I’m Steve Rogers.”

“And I’m James Buchanan Barnes.”

“And this is our ALS not-so-icy bucket challenge!”

They held onto each other with infectious grins, bracing for impact. Tony, Natasha, Clint, Bruce and Thor gleefully tossed huge buckets of soapy, sudsy cold water at the two nonagenarians, lathering them both up from head to toe. Steve was in the Captain America suit, and Barnes had drug out his old Winter Soldier tac armor, but right now, the pair of them looked like gawky teenagers covered in bubbles and giggling like schoolgirls, wiping the soap out of each other’s eyes, sputtering bubbles, and generally being total goobers for each other.

Tony felt a sudden pang, realizing that most of America – if not _all_ – would have preferred Cap and Snowcone in their skivvies, maybe even Speedos, for this challenge. Less definitely would have been _more_.

“Don’t forget to donate – got to <http://www.alsa.org> to make your donation to help make ALS history!” the two men out of time call out in unison.

“Who do you challenge next?” Romanoff demanded with a chuckling shout (and Tony was left wondering how she managed to do that).

“Um … Phil Coulson!”

“Maria Hill!”

“Sharon Carter!”

“And Sam Wilson!”

“Y’got 24 hours, folks – the gauntlet has been tossed!” Tony announced to the camera, photobombing Cap and Barnes’s challenge video.

“Geeze, I’m cold!” Barnes complained as the recording was stopped; Romanoff took the phone and tapped out commands to upload the video to YouTube.

“C’mon, I got you,” Cap breathed, wrapping his arms around Barnes’s shoulders and pulling him tight.

“I need to get out of this armor,” Barnes announced.

“I’ve never tried to get out of the suit when it’s wet – I may need some help,” Cap replied.

The smile that Barnes leveled on Cap was sweet, enthusiastic, and not a little pornographic.

“Ah, geeze, get a room!” Clint bitched loudly as the two old young men wrapped themselves around each other and raced off.

To get warm.

END

**Author's Note:**

> And you can donate to the ALS Association at <http://www.alsa.org>

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I (still) don't like the ice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208897) by [chaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaos/pseuds/chaos)




End file.
